babble is rabble.ca's discussion board but it's much more than that: it's an online community for folks who just won't shut up. It's a place to tell each other — and the world — what's up with our work and campaigns.

Thank you bouchecl. My musing was sincere. I do have to learn about Acadia and Acadians. I never traveled eastward further than Edmunston, NB. and never read nor seen anything related to Acadians, other than watching "La Sagouine" on TV in the seventies (?) as I was living in Quebec-City.

Saint John city council is the latest local government in New Brunswick to turn away the controversial Anglo Society.

Council received and filed the group's request to fly its flag for one day outside Saint John City Hall, but it did not discuss the request, and Mayor Ivan Court made it clear after the meeting that the flag was not welcome.

Former Progressive Conservative cabinet minister Paul Robichaud tried to avoid paying a speeding ticket by arguing that the RCMP officer who gave it to him did not offer him service in English.

Robichaud, who is a francophone and held several cabinet posts in the Bernard Lord government, including minister of La Francophonie, was caught speeding in the northeastern community of Tabusintac in January 2008.

Public Safety Minister Robert Trevors says he's received assurances that New Brunswick's police officers are respecting the province's languages law.

Trevors was reacting to the controversy that erupted after a Provincial Court judge dismissed the charges of a northeastern New Brunswick man because he was not offered service in both official languages.

Trevors said police officers must make sure people are always offered service in both English and French.

The Department of Education could be facing a legal challenge to its demand for school districts to cut their budgets, a prominent Acadian group says.

Education Minister Jody Carr has been facing resistance from the District 1 Education Council to his demand for districts to cut their budgets by two per cent. The education minister has been warned by other districts they can make the budget cut once but not in future years.

Jean-Marie Nadeau, the president of Acadian society, said Carr's decision could force the provincial government into the courtroom to defend its cuts.

Nadeau said the cuts to the school districts are unconstitutional because they violate two sections of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that entrench the rights of English and French linguistic communities to distinct educational and cultural institutions as a way to preserve and promote their communities.

A new report by Statistics Canada shows the size of the francophone population in New Brunswick has been outpaced by growth among other linguistic groups over the past five decades.

The proportion of New Brunswickers who identified French as their mother tongue in the province went from 35.9 per cent in 1951 to 32.7 per cent in 2006. Over the same period the number of people identifying English as a mother tongue grew to 64.7 per cent from 63.1 per cent. Meanwhile, the number of people identifying another language as their mother tongue went from one per cent to 2.6 per cent.

The numbers are contained in a report released Thursday by Statistics Canada and entitled Official-Language Minorities in Canada: Francophones in New Brunswick. It's the latest in a series of reports that have also highlighted the situation among Franco-Ontarians, francophones in British Columbia, francophones in the three territories and Anglo-Quebecers.

New Brunswick's official languages commissioner is calling on the provincial government to ban bilingual daycares by extending the policy of duality that currently covers the education system.

Michel Carrier said in his annual report that was released on Thursday the same rules that divide kindergarten to Grade 12 into French and English systems in New Brunswick should also apply to daycares.

Carrier said experts have told him that in a bilingual daycare, French preschoolers tend to lose their French and learn English instead.

And why would they want to celebrate the battle of the Plains of Abraham?

You'd think some of the more memorable events of the St. John's River Campaign like the Ste, Annes Massacre would be a bit more fitting, being in the neighbourhood, and all. But perhaps they don't want people to remember that part of Anglo society.

I am not surprised by their loosey goosey approach to history. That flag of theirs is all fucked up.

The Anglo Flag was developed by members of the Society. The crosses of St. Andrew and St. George make up the background of the Flag but the red bars coming from each of the corners and joining in the middle beneath the Maple Leaf represent the four corners of New Brunswick uniting for the good of the province and nation. The Maple Leaf in the centre represents the fact that first and foremost we are Canadian. The Lion in the centre of the Maple Leaf represents the English language and culture. All of the parts together are the Anglo Flag.

The English cross is vertical. And a St. Andrews cross is white on blue. Theirs is a St. Patrick's cross. Though perhaps it is appropriate that it bears some resemblance to the flag of Ulster.